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This was not a well-considered sound-bite from Narron. A reporter asked him who was the Reds’ MVP this year and he said he’d have to think about it and get back to him. Then off-the-cuff, said that since the Reds lost four of five since Aurilia’s been out with the flu, maybe that means he’s valuable. This snippet of an observation wasn’t anything more than that, though headlines make it seem much more definitive than it actually was. I for one am not holding Narron to it.

Now we have a 2M mutual option with him that has to be decided within 10 days after the world series. He’s been very vocal that he wants to start, he’s not going to pick his end up unless he is guaranteed a starting position by the club. Is that going to be possible with Freel, Encarnacion, and Lopez here? I don’t think so, and I’ll be upset if they do. In my eyes they kept him here in Sep. for no good reason, and they will now lose him and get nothing in return. An C level A ball pitcher would have been better than nothing. Looks like a big mistake to me.

The Reds have insinuated that no one was interested in trading for Aurilia. I found that difficult to believe unquestioningly, but that was clearly the between-the-lines message of their comments on the subject around the trading deadline.

As difficult as Aurilia has been to deal with as a persona, and as much as his signing last winter was ridiculed by myself and many others as counter-productive, let’s not lose sight of the fact that Rich has been pretty decent – much better than we expected him to be. He hasn’t been a huge plus, and in this great offense there are about 10 better hitters than he, but he hasn’t been a gaping hole (ask the Mariners last year to find out what that would look like).

Hopefully Aurilia won’t be pouting around in the Reds’ clubhouse next year. And that’s all I have to say about that.

Baseball Prospectus shows a very interesting point about Harang. His hitting has been SO bad that it significantly diminishes his pitching contributions. He shows about 36 runs over a replacement pitcher, but drops nearly 7 runs (almost a full win!) with his atrocious hitting. Win shares are ever more telling. Harang has 10.8 Win Shares as a pitcher, but has -2.8 as a batter. Dunn is at 26; Jr 22; Casey is fifth, behind Lopez and LaRue.

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